Baker's social media post calling out thieves who stole £90 of cakes from her honesty box backfires as she is blamed for 'dangling a carrot' in front of the vulnerable
An angry baker called out thieves on social media for swiping up to £90 of cakes from her village honesty box - only for people to blame her for 'dangling a carrot' in front of the vulnerable.
Laura Craig has been selling £3 treats from an unlocked cupboard in Salterforth, Lancashire, for the past month but this weekend she noticed stock and income was low.
The 39-year-old took to Facebook on Sunday to declare 'dishonest' thieves had been taking cakes without payment so she's had to halt her trust-based sales.
The Cake Cupboard owner, who has been selling treats to cafes for two years, says up to 10 cakes per day were stolen between Friday and Sunday - totalling a possible £90 loss.
Many Facebook users supported the mum-of-two's idea and said that 'selfish' people should be 'ashamed' they are ruining the honesty box for others.
But others branded it 'daft' and suggested she was 'dangling a carrot' in front of vulnerable people.
Laura, who lives in Salterforth, said: 'I was angry because they're ruining it for everyone else.
'On Friday I emptied it and saw it was quite empty but I hadn't had many card payments and there wasn't much cash in the tin. I was down by 20%.
'It's a minority that are stealing but it was up to 10 cakes per day over the bank holiday weekend.
'It's a tiny amount but if that happens every day then that's me out of pocket a lot so I have to put a stop to it.
'It had been really good and worked really well and this weekend is the first time we've had theft so I couldn't believe it.
'The first three weeks were amazing. I was selling enough to refill it twice on a Friday and then three or four on a Saturday and a Sunday.
'I'm not naive. I know we're going to be a pound down here and there. It's fine because I know things like that can happen.
'Some people have said they knew it wouldn't work but they're just negative people. You don't know unless you try.
'It's just teething problems. There's cake boxes up and down the county.
'I've been flabbergasted by the support and I've had a lot of private messages with great feedback.
'I'm not going to open it this weekend but I'm looking into CCTV.'
The box accepted payment both through cash left at the cupboard and via digital smart phone payments.
Laura was a post woman before setting up her dream baking business and figured an unmanned honesty box was the best way to earn some money during her busy weekends.
Her post revealing its closure has almost 100 likes, comments and shares with users either supporting the angry owner or appearing to blame her for her struggles.
One commented: 'Haa. If I was struggling or homeless and there were cakes sitting there, I would also help myself.
'Same with kids who don't have cash or nothing good from home! Not to mention the tearaway and stoners!!
'Try securing, protecting and managing it and not expecting the other eight billion people in the world to think and act like you want them to. You dangled a carrot and now you're sad someone got a bite.'
A second agreed and said: 'We live in a dishonest world. If kids get wind of free cakes, what's going to happen? Daft idea to begin with.'
However, one commented: 'Whoever you are who are taking and not paying should be truly ashamed of yourselves.
'This lady works so hard to bring joy to many many cake loving people and you are just spoiling it for the majority. Do the right thing please.'
Another said: 'Oh that's rubbish, I don't understand what's wrong with people these days. So selfish.'
A third suggested: 'Get CCTV, then if it happens again get it posted all over social media to name and shame. They'll soon stop.'
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If you ever thought, as I did growing up there, that Northern Ireland's fame was limited to 30 years of bombs and bullets, or building a ship that sank on its maiden voyage — you'd better think again. Twenty-one years ago, we were also host to the biggest robbery in British or Irish history at the time — in fact, the sixth biggest robbery in the world. Pretty impressive, eh? In one sense, it was impressive. On December 20, 2004, £26.5 million in cash was stolen from the Northern Bank headquarters in Belfast's city centre — in clear view of the public as Christmas shoppers strolled round the continental market just feet away. Glenn Patterson, an admired Belfast-based novelist, has written a book showing how the robbers did it, and how they got away with it. It was not just a monetary robbery, but a symbolic one. The Northern Bank building is a landmark in Belfast's post-industrial city centre, a great, sturdy 1970s edifice in concrete. It's a building you can imagine Bill Bixby walking out of, coat over shoulder, in the credits for The Incredible Hulk. But the robbery was not the first of its kind that year. Already in 2004 there had been other 'tiger kidnappings', where robbers would take family members hostage and force bank employees to help them to carry out the heist. In response, the Northern Bank had changed its operations so that two key holders were needed simultaneously to access its cash vaults. The criminals' solution? To abduct two employees' family members at once. Kevin McMullan, the bank's assistant manager, and Chris Ward, a junior employee, both had a knock on the door the night before the robbery. Armed men took over their homes and held their families hostage while McMullan and Ward were taken away. The men were held overnight, then told to go to work the next day and act normally. 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And in a world where every conspiracy theorist sees two-tier justice in any outcome they don't like, the aftermath of the robbery provided a real example. The senior IRA man Bobby Storey — believed to be the brains behind the robbery, and 'a great human being' in the words of Gerry Adams — died in June 2020 and his funeral attracted more than 1,500 people, in contravention of Covid regulations. Other people could have no more than 30 at theirs. None of the Sinn Fein politicians who attended were prosecuted, while at a Black Lives Matter protest in Belfast a few weeks earlier, 70 people were fined. Patterson had once planned to write a screenplay of the robbery. I wish he had. It has everything: tension, dark comedy, human interest, big issues and more. But this book will do very nicely in its place. And if the Northern Bank heist was indeed a symbolic robbery, then here is the other symbol. Why did they do it? Because they knew they could get away with it. As Patterson points out: 'Something [else] disappeared in that white van in December 2004 that has never been recovered.' The Northern Bank Job: The Heist and How They Got Away With It by Glenn Patterson (Head of Zeus £16.99 pp272). To order a copy go to Free UK standard P&P on orders over £25. Special discount available for Times+ members
